Path’s Morin: Traffic up 50% in a month due to search, premium subscription and more virtual goods coming

At the DLD conference in Munich, Germany, today, Path‘s Dave Morin said that the mobile social network’s traffic is up 50% in the past month thanks to its recently introduced search feature. Meanwhile, its registered user count is nearing 6 million, up from its previous claim of 5 million in December 2012.

Although Path has only sold premium photo filters as a source of revenue until now, Morin told David Kirkpatrick onstage that more virtual goods will be available in the first half of this year. There will also be a premium subscription service aimed at regular users. As for the specific features of this package, Morin said “We’re still working through it,” but that they would be features that a normal new user would probably not find interesting, such as increased personalization.

Morin said that the US and Asia remain the most popular geographic areas for Path. Indeed, China is in the top five countries for users. Morin said that he’s not sure why the Chinese government hasn’t blocked Path, but suggested that the limited maximum number of connections per user (150) and focus on family connections – a particularly popular value in China, he said – may have contributed to the lack of a block. Meanwhile, in Europe the app has “a good presence” in the UK, France and Italy and just a small user base in Germany.

When it comes to a user-growth strategy, Morin told Kirkpatrick that he intended to “follow a curve that’s a little more slow-growing, intentional,” than simply aiming for one billion users as soon as possible, providing “deep value to the user.”

While Path has focused on family until now (Morin says that around 50% of users are connected to a family member), Morin said that there is a possibility of allowing users to have multiple networks in the future, although the company would have to be careful in the way this was implemented.

Morin said that he wasn’t interested in being acquired, telling Kirkpatrick that he wanted Path to be “a place the delivers value over the longterm.”